State News - Poll reveals Perry clings to nine-point lead 09/20/02

Published: Friday, September 20, 2002

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Poll reveals Perry clings to nine-point leadAUSTIN (AP)  Republican Gov. Rick Perry holds a nine-point lead over Democrat Tony Sanchez in the race for Texas governor, according to a poll conducted for the Houston Chronicle and KHOU-TV.

The poll indicates close contests for three other high-profile statewide races, including the one for U.S. Senate, where Republican John Cornyn holds a six-point lead over Democrat Ron Kirk.

"The governor's race is Perry's to lose, but that race will get closer come Election Day," said pollster Richard Murray, a political science professor at the University of Houston. "The others are real horse races."

The telephone poll of 879 likely voters across Texas was conducted Sept. 3-10 and Sept. 12-15 by the University of Houston Center for Public Policy and the Rice University School of Social Sciences.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

In the governor's race, polling indicates that Perry benefited from a decision to mount a television campaign ahead of Labor Day, before voters' attention became muddled with other political messages.

Sanchez, a multimillionaire Laredo oilman and banker, has been airing television ads for months.

Some political experts estimate Sanchez and Perry could spend as much as $100 million combined, breaking the 1990 re cord of $53.4 million for a Texas governor's race, even adjusted for inflation.

Although Sanchez, a Mexican-American, would be the state's first Hispanic governor, the poll indica-tes 44 percent of Hispanics have little interest in the race.

By comparison, 23 percent of whites have little interest and 37 percent of blacks have little interest, according to the poll.

Perry campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan said the poll underestimates the turnout of Republican voters. He said the governor has double-digit leads in other independent polling.

Sanchez spokeswoman Michelle Kucera said the poll indicates Sanchez is gaining steam as Election Day approaches. Internal Sanchez polling shows Perry leading by a smaller margin, she said.

In the Senate race, Kirk faces a problem with a major issue, the pollsters said.

The poll shows that 53 percent of Texans support sending U.S. ground troops to the Persian Gulf in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. A similar percentage of Cornyn supporters support such action, but 52 percent of Kirk supporters oppose it.

While Kirk himself has voiced support for ousting Saddam, Cornyn has suggested Kirk is soft on national security.

The polling indicates that Kirk has 62 percent of the support of blacks. Almost 50 percent of Hispanics are undecided. But among those who have decided, Kirk holds a 2-1 margin.